Player Comments on Mission Sunshine

Mission Sunshine is a short, but incredibly interesting and thought-provoking science fiction CYOA with a surprising amount of branching.

I’ve always been a fan of MHD’s stories. By now, I’ve read Soul Thief, Basement Rats, Polaris, Eros, so going into Mission Sunshine, I kind of had an expectation of what this story would be like, but as usual, MHD continues to surprise.

For one thing, I wasn’t expecting the Polaris tie-in. The appearance of Wiley Kleckner and Polaris is a testament to how much thought and passion MHD puts in her stories, since this was written in 2022, while both Polaris and Eros were written in 2024. Meaning that she must have had an idea for this world for a while, and the fact that the world has stayed so consistent over the course of 3 years and 3 stories is pretty great!

I think it’s definitely a different experience for me, since I joined the site in 2024, so naturally I read Polaris and Eros first, then moved to Mission Sunshine, but other readers who have been here for a while probably read it in the right order, so seeing Kleckner wouldn’t be as surprising.

Alright, without further ado, let’s get into the story.

The story explores a really cool premise: You are a scientist who’s been having these strange dreams lately. These dreams are incredibly vivid and immersive, basically lucid dreams where you see, feel, and can touch just like you do in real life. You start having dreams of this strange being made entirely out of light. And then a strange comet hits your planet, and from the comet, 3 beings made out of light appear. You get the chance to study them, and learn more about them. And from there, your life changes forever.

Cast of characters:

One of the disadvantages with a story that's of a shorter size is that the author can’t do everything. Some things have to go by the wayside, but nevertheless, this doesn’t detract from the story. But, it would be nice to get a bit more.

Out of all the characters, I feel like I would have liked to see more from Audre. Konstantin and Quinn were definitely the highlights(pun intended) of the story, but Hattie, Montgomery, Mickie, and Wiley Kleckner were all interesting in their own way.

But I felt bad that we didn’t get to see Audre’s personality other than the fact that he/she is stoic.

Nevertheless, I liked Hattie and Konstantin. We really see proof that the light creatures are intelligent life forms by the divergent ways they both act. Hattie is able to pick up speech, she seems curious, while Konstantin seems alien and otherworldly and all powerful. But also thoughtful and caring in his own way.

I loved the love story in this story. I was not expecting a cross-species romance between a human and shimmering pillar of light to be so gripping, but it was! The dream at the beginning sets it up so nicely. We open in a strange world, and then we see a creature of light. We’re about to touch it, but then the dream fades.

From there, the romance picks up steam through the various lucid dreams Quinn has throughout the story.

In some ways, it felt like scientific love and passion: the purest form of love, as Quinn is someone who is incredibly passionate about her multiple fields of expertise: astronomy, astrobiology, cosmology, astrophysics, and all that is contained therein.

But it’s also something more. Something about the light creature is so alien and strange, that as the old saying goes, opposites attract. I love the love-at-first-sight that we see, and yet the actual romance unfolds gradually. We know that Quinn is in love, but it takes time.

The most pivotal moment in this story is the choice to take off your goggles and keep them on, at least for me. It’s such a huge turning moment.

At the same time, some aspects of their love, like Quinn being scarred, burned, and otherwise damaged by the creature of lightning scare me. There’s something so chaotic in the way that their love is described. In the highest of highs, Quinn is soaring through the skies and basically being one with Konstantin, and in the lowest of lows, she’s scarred and hurt by lightning.

Is this a metaphor for how an all consuming passion for a field of study can take you to the highest of highs, to that amazing feeling where you grasp a tough concept and intellectually grapple with a tough problem, but also this same passion can burn you, maybe damage you and result in you never being the same? I don’t know, and the implication both scares me and fascinates me.

(That’s why I said thought-provoking, lol. MHD wrote such a cool story that could be interpreted so many ways. I would love to see this story put in front of a literature class, and have them interpret what the lightoids represent. Maybe even write a 5 page essay, haha.).

To further develop my metaphor, Kleckner wants to capture and contain the lightoids, thereby hiding and keeping knowledge secret. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story eventually reaches 2 key branching points:

1. Try to bide your time
2. Continue Steady Research

If you choose to bide your time, you can either save the lightoids or choose to avoid risking it.

If you choose to save the lightoids, you can either mind meld with Konstantin, becoming a lightoid like him, or save the other lightoids.

The mind melding path was weird for me. But then again, it’s all in the context of a lucid dream, and MHD stories are sort of meant to be kind of trippy, fantastic, and cool, where you never quite know exactly what's going on, but in a really cool way, so I really loved this ending. MHD wrote this in an incredibly poetic way, and i loved the idea of the 2 lovers spending the rest of eternity racing each other across the heavens. Also, because Quinn’s dream was to study the stars and really understand the heavens, and in a way, she gets her wish in a way being a scientist could never really fulfill for her.

The endings where you choose to save the other lightoids, or to just avoid it altogether, were really sad. There’s something so heartbreaking about being able to be in contact with an incredibly intelligent life form, and then see them be exploited by greedy business men looking to make a quick buck through a novelty. There’s a sense of sorrow and loss, because Wiley Kleckner doesn’t have the emotional depth, sensitivity, or intelligence to even begin to comprehend what the lightoids are. I really like this element being reflected in an alien story, since so many alien stories focus on fighting the aliens, or conquering them, or protecting earth, that we miss the simple sense of wonder at being in proximity with an alien life form. But this story has a sense of appreciation, curiosity, and exploration that I really loved!

I liked the heist scene of breaking into Polaris with Konstantin well enough. It was cool!

Ultimately, the best parts of this story were the incredibly poetic and descriptive writing, the amazing world building, the complex themes of being confronted with the unknown, of something far beyond our comprehension, and being able to love and appreciate it, the characters, and the multifaceted endings.

This story left me with a lot to think about, and I really liked the love story between Konstantin and Quinn. It was beautiful.

Disclaimer: to the author, take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional writer and only somewhat of a seasoned reviewer. To the readers, this review will contain some spoilers, so I implore you to read the storygame first.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I briefly remember really enjoying this storygame when I glanced at it a while back, though I don’t think I left a rating or a review. Time to comment on it properly, then. The description is succinct and straightforward, leaving the reader with just enough to infer the direction the story will take. I love the illustrations too.

The description on the first page is a nice blend between abstract and concrete imagery, creating an ethereal, dream-like feel. This reminds me of writing advice I once read about opting for verb-based sentences instead of noun-based ones. In these paragraphs, the protagonist’s touch creates a ripple in space and time, and the small rocks collide with stars—combined with personification, everything in this vast world of wonders feels so alive. This is by far the best ‘starting with a dream’ sequence that I’ve read. It shows that there are exceptions to every rule.

WRITING STYLE

It starts with a description of the comet. Knowing what’s to come, I like that the way it’s described—”They said it was far too small to make it and you assumed as much as well”—along with the protagonist’s choice to watch it for hours gives it a slight sense of personification, sort of like they were rooting for it to make it. The scene is painted through details of sight and sound, but I liked that to emphasize the panic in the moment, rather than making use of more description, it fades away, giving the spotlight to the panicked lines of dialogue.

There are a few comma splices throughout the story, such as “So the researcher did, looked at you for confirmation” and “Hattie looked on, realized before Konstantine what they were meant to do”. Replacing these with a conjunction or semicolon would fix the issue. And there was a missing quotation mark for the first line of dialogue where the protagonist speaks to her assistant. Aside from this, the story is very well proofread with barely any grammatical or spelling errors.

I chuckled at the line, “You screamed, as a human who has just been thrown out a window is apt to do.”

The dreams feel so real and vivid, with references to warmth and light. Yet, the same intensity was found in the description later when Konstantine visited the protagonist. It felt poetic that he held the same hand he had burned, portraying that his feelings for her had completely changed. Maybe it’s the way it was written, but this story often reads like a vibrant, beautiful dream.

CHARACTERS & PLOT

The protagonist is characterized as someone with a fascination for space and this curiosity leads naturally to her quest to find out more about the Lightoids. When she does, she instantly takes a more empathetic approach than the other scientists, viewing them as intelligent creatures rather than a specimen to be studied. She faces the internal struggle to reconcile her role as a scientist and her emotional side which wants to see them as human. This is reflected in her choices—between removing the goggles or leaving them on; telling the truth about her feelings towards the Lightoids or concealing them.

Konstantine, on the other hand, starts off as more hostile. He steps in to intervene when Hattie tries to communicate with the protagonist and leaves a burn on her glove. But eventually, he attempts to speak with her and tell her more about their species.

The pictures of the journal are brilliant additions to the storygame. It provides information on the past events in a visual format, which is both nicely drawn and fitting given the protagonist’s characterization as someone with a tendency to daydream.

To be honest, I felt that there wasn’t enough build-up or chemistry to solidify the relationship between Konstantine and Quinn. They had barely talked and only spent a few moments together. The details of her dreams weren’t mentioned too often either. Hence, the part where she said she loved him and kissed him during the flight seemed a bit out of place, especially considering she could have chosen not to save him in the scene prior. There weren't enough interactions, nor moments of longing and mutual affection. Readers weren’t given reasons as to why they fell for each other. And even if she chooses to save him, he leaves her behind to return to his planet, never visiting her dreams again.

The protagonist had a bit more chemistry with Mickie, as he displayed concern for her in most of their conversations, even bringing flowers when she was in hospital, though that was more likely platonic given she believed he was always getting in her way.

My favorite endings were those that implied the story wasn’t over. I enjoyed the one where Quinn was given Lightoid powers, complete with a nicely illustrated epilogue. But my favorite was when he visited her in a dream, speaking into a telephone, inferring that love knows no planetary bounds.

I've reread this five or six times since I first explored it last week, and I like it better and better each time. First of all, I am extremely peeved that you thought of the notion of having the first choice be wake up/don't wake up, and then just go ahead with the story either way, which is brilliant, and I wish I had thought of it. (Especially because the wake up/don't wake up which leads to a game over link if you don't wake up is such a cliche of games and makes certain people irritable.)

What it does here, though, is it casts the whole game into a potential lucid dream, a fantasy, or a half-dream *even without you having to write two different gigantic branches*--just by giving that choice at the start. That's brilliant and I'm jealous.

Even if I didn't know this game was written by a visual artist, I would know, because the game is relentless in its visuals, in its offering light and shape and relative forms throughout, on nearly every page. Hand-like forms, stretched out shapes of light, the unforgettable image of the glass eyes over the eyes from an alien point of view, in which we suddenly reverse the camera and see ourselves--this is an artist's game, or someone used to thinking about form and perspective.

The game is not long, but the choices are really evocative. It's always a good thing for a game when I pause and admire how poetic the choices are--take off the goggles or not? This isn't just a science safety thing, but about connection and distance. That's what this game is about. Almost every choice asks the player to trust, or hedge, or connnect, or make a leap of faith, and when the choices are like that, you don't need a million of them. The endings were lyrical, lovely, and all of them a treat to read.

Then I woke up. Maybe.

Oh, I'm glad I remembered this--there's a choice that says "buy your time" when you in fact meant "bide your time"--I couldn't figure out how I was buying time, or for whom. Then I realized it was just a typo.

General Recommendation: An entertaining game with intriguing scientific concepts.
Preview: After a strange comet lands near your research facility, how will your relationship with the strange new alien life forms develop?

=SPOILERS BELOW=

General notes:
Always good to see the classic “Asshole humans are dicks to aliens” plotline.
I wish this story focused more on the fascinating scientific questions is raises, but that’s a problem with me and my preferences, not the story itself. Though the scientific implications behind light-beings that communiate through electrical charges are fascinating, that’s not what this story is about. This story is not about linguistic meticula, but about the growing bond between the narrator and the aliens. There’s a number of things that are scientifically unrealistic in this story, but the science isn’t the point here, it's the characters.
Unfortunately, I don’t think this story quite hits where it’s trying to hit. The focus seems like it’s meant to be on the narrator’s growing relationship with Konstantine. However, the narrator and Konstantine barely spend time together (outside of her dreams, which we don’t see much of), so it’s hard to believe their feelings for each other are all that profound. Including some details of the sequences where they communicate in Quinn’s dreams would go a long way towards making this progression feel more believable. As things currently stand, Quinn has much more character development with Mickie and Montgomery than Konstantine. I realize this story is limited by the fact that it’s a written format trying to sell a relationship between two characters who can’t communicate, but it still feels incomplete.
My general impression of this story is that it feels like a very good first draft. The concepts are fascinating and original, and it’s clear the author knows what they’re trying to do with this idea. But the execution feels like it falls a little short. The bond between the aliens and narrator doesn’t quite feel believable to me, not in the span of time presented, and not with the limited interactions we actually see between the characters.
That said, take my review of the story with a grain of salt. Romance is not a genre I am well-equipped at reviewing, and others may feel that the relationship between the pair is fine.

Specific notes:
-Good first line; asks the reader questions and intrigues them enough to keep reading.
-I like the way this story jumps right into the action; the comet’s collision with earth.
-You should probably make it more obvious what “ETSD” stands for.
-This story apparently takes place on earth, but the astronomy center can brain-wipe employees. This suggests a parallel earth of some sort?
-Montgomery says “Don’t injure yourself”. Is discovering a new planet’s coordinates physically taxing? Or does she simply mean “Don’t overwork yourself”?
-The entire text of “disagree with Mickie” is repeated.
-The narrator’s feelings surrounding the Lightoids are well explored.
-Reminds me of “the arrival” a little, with the importance of establishing communication.
-I like the journal. It’s a good summary device, and the images add flavor to the story.
-“Came all the way from Polaris.” Does this mean Earth has now traveled to and established colonies in other star systems? If so, I’d recommend making this more clear.
-At this stage, I’m having a hard time buying the growing bond between Quinn and the Lightoids. Even if we assume her lucid dreams are a form of contact from them, she still hasn’t established any for m of communication with them, and they only know her as just another scientist keeping them imprisoned. Quinn may be one of the few trying to reach out and communicate, but she’s not yet succeeded, and the Lightoids have no way of knowing her intentions.
-Lol: “You screamed, as a human who has just been thrown out of a window is apt to do”
-The ending where there’s static electricity between your fingers is interesting, suggesting the narrator’s adventures are not over.
-I like the device of additional journal pages appearing in the endings.

Grammar:
Good.
Mastery of Language:
-The past tense is kind of throwing me off, but that’s a me problem, I’m used to storygames being in the present tense.
-The grammar in this story is good, but as far as the structure and pacing of individual sentences, I think it could have used another round of editing. There are some places where the wording feels odd, or unrelated to previous clauses, or with repeated words, and distracts the reader from the story.
-“As whatever was colliding with Earth” feels odd, as they know it’s the comet. EDIT: Oh I see, you’re refering to the comet’s mysterious properties that made it not burn up as ice ought to.

Mechanics & Coding: Good, there’s a bit of scripting surrounding the “buy time” choice, nothing too complex.

Branching:
Initially seems good, with multiple choices provided to the player. However, a replay reveals that most of these choices result in rebranching. Unless these chocies have some scripting behind them that isn’t immediately obvious, this is a fairly linear story, with a major path that splits in the middle.

Player options/Fair choice:
Good, but there’s really only one major chocie in the game up until the endings, that in some playthroughs the player won’t even get to make.

Nitpicks:
-I don’t think the ocean gets very deep in the bermuda triangle.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
I got the ending where you wake up in the hospital after helping the aliens escape.

CONCLUSION: 5/8. I like the premise and I like the plot and characters. But the execution feels like it falls a little short, the sentence structure could use some tidying up, and the game is somewhat restrictively linear up until the end. Overall I liked it, an enjoyable read.

Top notch!

I just joined cys, and this was the first story I read. Since I was still getting the hang of everything, I didn't quite get the funness restarting and choosing new paths, but nowww I do.
The first ending was Konstatine's death, which left me disappointed, but after going back to hunt the other endings down, I got excited.
Overall I thought it was pretty cool--the idea of possibly becoming a star creature was very intriguing. I know it only happened in a dream(?), (I haven't exhausted all the endings, so idk if you did do this), but an ending with that actually happening would be very fun.
Also starting to fall in love with a starman...kinda iconic and also real.

I like the concept here but wish there was more. Perhaps you were consider a more expansive story?

This is really good. I absolutely love this story even though it was a bit weird at first. It's one of the stories that are so far out there that they actually fall through the weirdness scale and come out the other side. My only complaint is that it is shorter than I wanted or expected. Other than that, this is a pretty great read!

Delightful! Solid very "replayable", choices not always leading where you expect. I found it very enjoyable. Would like to see another one or two "winning" endings. Good grammar and style.

The more I read stuff like this the more I realize I'm like basically the exact opposite of a brain-broke aphantasiac retard, and it makes me happy. And so, so smug.

This is the best shit I've ever read, it's like Monty Python meets Roadside Picnic and it's all ive ever wanted from A choose your own adventure game.

This is very good. Your writing is light and pleasant to read. You made sure to engage the senses reasonably well and describe the environment, thoughts, feelings, and actions without relying on cliché or overly familiar phrases. Furthermore you made no errors in grammar or spelling that distract from the content.

While I wanted to know more about the protagonist, you made sure to flesh out a meaningful part of the story. To put it another way, you brought the sunshine to life, but left the mere mammals by the wayside. Who is Quinn? I don't know very much. To counter my own quibble, the journal is a great touch, helps us enter the protagonists headspace, and allows people interested to see more the chance to do so without extending the story for people looking to read through swiftly.

I have a couple more points on the Journal. It should be more convenient to navigate. I want to be able to jump from page I straight to page IV or V. Secondly, letting people miss the journal epilogue details was probably a mistake. So glad you included the tip about it in the description. I've played through three endings and I think you've done a great job.